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Re-living trauma

When I was a kid, I broke my ankle pretty badly. Ruined my tennis career (well, maybe). I was in crutches for months. As an adult, my ankle remained weak to the point where I would twist it ALOT. The pain was so bad, it felt like lightning shooting through my body.

The thing I noticed though is that when I am walking, I often will IMAGINE myself twisting my ankle and feeling that pain. The pain is almost real. It makes my heart pound and I feel panic. All for imagining a twisted ankle that I don’t have. I have no idea why I keep re-living this trauma, but I do.

The other day, I fell on my bike and roughed up my shoulder and face. I tried to get right back on the bike the next day, so I don’t make a ‘thing’ out of it. However, now I find myself imagining the fall while I am biking. It is making me feel sick to my stomach and panicky. I hate it.

Previously, I had accidentally deleted a file and was unable to recover it because I deleted it on a windows share. It was not in any recycle bin. It felt awful to lose all that work. Now, every time I use a Windows share, I imagine that pain of losing the file and it makes me feel panic and misery.

Any trauma will linger in the human brain. We re-live our worst experiences. I am not sure the psychological reasons for this effect, but I know it happens to alot of people. It’s hard to stay in the “I love it” category of software because the world changes and requirements change. One bad move reverberates for a long time.

But like the Hitchhiker’s Guide says, “Don’t Panic”. If you can.

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One Comment

Dan

When Lindy broke her ankle, the doctor said that after it fully healed (about a year), it would actually be stronger than before. So it is all in your head, but I still feel your pain. Everytime, I feel a twinge or crap in my side I have a little mini-panic attack. You know what you can do though, you coulda act like man!